Second stop, Xi'an
I am writing this from Hong Kong where we arrived last night following a somewhat torturous two day journey (see next journal entry) from Xi'an. Xi'an is a much smaller city than Beijing (although still has a population of 7 million!), lying 1200km south-west of the capital. The journey from Beijing went well, although the flight was a bit shaky - most planes I've been on have tended to go pretty much straight down the runway. Our pilot, however, chose to go for more of a weaving approach on take-off, and the landing was not much better either.Our stay in Xi'an did not get off to the best start; when we arrived at Shuyuan Youth Hostel we found that our reserved double-room had been triple-booked (to any future hotelier, a scruffy piece of paper is probably not the most efficient booking system). We therefore had to spend the first night in separate 5 and 6 bed dorms (our plan to ease ourselves gently into hostel life went flying out of the window!!). Emily got the worst deal being allocated a bed in the basement that "seemed to be designed to hold the rejects of society", with an uncloseable window, dripping pipes, a tabletennis table outside, and a screeching cat (they let her stay there for free, which says something about the accomodation). She was not best pleased, especially when I was an hour late in meeting her the next morning - clearly I had got the best nights sleep, although in my defence, she had the alarm clock! The following 3 nights were spent in a much nicer and cleaner 4-bed dorm, although the communal bathrooms were still pretty disgraceful!!
Xi'an is a historical city, probably most famous for the Terracotta Warriors Museum which lies 30KM away. On our first day, however, we had no time for tourism - following our train-ticket misadventures in Beijing we made tickets for the next leg of our journey a first day priority. After a couple of failed attempts, we were delighted to find a travel agent who was both able and willing to book us some train tickets to Guanzhou (where we would get a shuttle bus to Hong Kong). We then spent the afternoon exploring the Muslim Quarter of the city, which is mostly made up of narrow, bustling laneways lined with old mud brick houses. We also found a delightful park which had a great festival atmosphere - presumably because it was still the national holiday. We had such a great time that we completely forgot to go to the Great Mosque, which we had set as the main objective of the day!
For the second day we had organized to go on a tour to the Terracotta Warrior Museum. The museum was interesting but felt a bit too much like a theme park. It did not help that it was still the national holiday and so there were three times more people there than usual, and Chinese people are not the most polite in crowds. We also got the impression that the Chinese probably don't know all that much about archeology and excavation, judging from the 3 'pits' we had seen. Our tour guide, 'Jerry', also took us to terracotta army merchandise factory outlet, where he was clearly working on some sort of comission. It was here that Emily and I decided that a full sized terracotta warrior would look great in an English garden, and what a bargain at 700 GBP!. Our final stop was a silk outlet store where they showed us how they produce silk, before trying to sell us silk duvets and duvet covers - just what a minibus of backpackers needs!!
On our final day we did the more touristy things. Firstly, we climbed the famous Xi'an Bell Tower, before visiting the Great Mosque in the Muslim Quarter which was very attractive. We then hopped on (or rather crammed into) a bus to our next site, the 'Big Goose Pagoda'. Built on the site of a former temple, the pagoda is 64 metres tall and was built to house Buddhist scriptures brought back from India. The bizarre name comes from a Buddhist saying along the lines of "bury the wild goose, build the pagoda". This was interesting, but the real experience happened outside in the vast square to the rear of the pagoda where there was a brilliant fountain show, during which the hundreds of fountains in the square spurted out gallons of water in time to the music.
Our final stop was the City Walls. Xi'an is one of the few cities in China where old city walls are still visible, and the Chinese government have recently completed a restoration, so you can now circumnavigate all 14km. We got some great views and were very impressed at the size of the walls - they make the York City Walls look a bit redundant. Going in the early evening felt very eerie, mainly because of the fog that plagues Xi'an. Jerry the tour guide had told us that this is caused by sand clouds that blow in from inner Mongolia. As a result Xi'an does not experience the sun as elsewhere, but rather just sees an orange disc in the overcast skyline. Emily's highlight of the day was our rickshaw ride from the Wall - as if it needed confirming, under no circumstances will I ever even consider driving in China!!
On our final day we did the more touristy things. Firstly, we climbed the famous Xi'an Bell Tower, before visiting the Great Mosque in the Muslim Quarter which was very attractive. We then hopped on (or rather crammed into) a bus to our next site, the 'Big Goose Pagoda'. Built on the site of a former temple, the pagoda is 64 metres tall and was built to house Buddhist scriptures brought back from India. The bizarre name comes from a Buddhist saying along the lines of "bury the wild goose, build the pagoda". This was interesting, but the real experience happened outside in the vast square to the rear of the pagoda where there was a brilliant fountain show, during which the hundreds of fountains in the square spurted out gallons of water in time to the music.
Our final stop was the City Walls. Xi'an is one of the few cities in China where old city walls are still visible, and the Chinese government have recently completed a restoration, so you can now circumnavigate all 14km. We got some great views and were very impressed at the size of the walls - they make the York City Walls look a bit redundant. Going in the early evening felt very eerie, mainly because of the fog that plagues Xi'an. Jerry the tour guide had told us that this is caused by sand clouds that blow in from inner Mongolia. As a result Xi'an does not experience the sun as elsewhere, but rather just sees an orange disc in the overcast skyline. Emily's highlight of the day was our rickshaw ride from the Wall - as if it needed confirming, under no circumstances will I ever even consider driving in China!!
On the whole, we did enjoy Xi'an, but we felt that it might have lost a lot of its character by developing into both a tourism orientated city and a giant shopping mall. Certainly the highlight for both of us had been our afternoon spent strolling through the Muslim Quarter where we actually felt like we were seeing how people lived. I think we also missed the adventures that we'd had in Beijing - perhaps things were just too easy in Xi'an!!
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